The Rod of Correction

“I don’t want to find out one day that I’m at the end of someone else’s life.”
—Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), Out of Africa

I’ve been reevaluating my formerly rosy opinion of our nation’s youth. Over the past month, I have had to deal with millennial incompetence, indifference, and downright insolence on an almost daily basis. The effect it’s having on me isn’t pretty. Soon I will be sitting on the porch in my pajamas, brandishing my Lady Smith .38 special and shouting, “Get off my lawn!”

Just this week, I commiserated with a friend who’s my age. She and I were schoolmates from kindergarten through high school. We sat in the waiting room of my doctor’s office and grumped about those darned kids. Why are so many of them so irresponsible? And why do they — as Scripture would say — resist the rod of correction?

This news was delivered with fresh-faced innocence, as if such a snafu had been totally unavoidable.

Now, by “the rod of correction,” please be assured that I don’t mean my .38. I merely mean that many young people can’t stand criticism, however polite and constructive it might be. They appear incapable of making any connection between responsibility and potential improvement. To them, it seems to be a very nasty game of tag. At all cost, they want to avoid being “it."

My friend had driven me to my appointment for the first time several days before. We’d then been informed — only after our arrival — that the pretty young thing behind the desk had scheduled it for the one day of the week when the doctor was not in that office. This news was delivered with fresh-faced innocence, as if such a snafu had been totally unavoidable. When we returned for the rescheduled appointment, we were kept waiting for an hour and a half — this time with no explanation, and as if our annoyance were a major cross to bear. By then I had lost all confidence that things would turn out right this time, and couldn’t bring myself to believe I’d actually see the doctor until she and I were face to face.

A few days before my trip to the doctor with my friend, I called our local communications monopoly to cancel my telephone service. They informed me that for internet service alone, I would be charged over $90 a month. I complained about this, and asked the customer service rep to check and see if I might get a better rate. I don’t think I was especially harsh, but the little darling must not have liked my tone. While he had me on hold, he disconnected not only my telephone service — immediately — but also my call.

When he goes home to mother, perhaps she’ll sue the company.

Perhaps he believed he’d taught me a lesson, though I don’t know what it might have been. I called his supervisor on my cellphone and filed a complaint. She was a few decades older than the service rep. She readily agreed that his conduct had been unacceptable. Had I gotten yet another twenty-something, I probably would have been asked what I’d done to provoke it.

I don’t want to think too hard about the reaction the supervisor will get when she writes up the infraction. The service rep may take an early retirement in tears. When he goes home to mother, perhaps she’ll sue the company. I’m sure I’ll be accused of having done grave damage to his self-esteem. No one in his little world is likely to wonder why his self-esteem is so fragile in the first place.

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that he could have simply gotten back on the line, told me that no specials or discounts were available, and had an end to the transaction. I would have been unhappy, but not unpleasant. It was what I expected to hear, but because I have to work for my money, I thought it worthwhile to ask. He evidently thought the danger that I might react unhappily too horrible a prospect to face.

Without the ability and willingness to take individual responsibility, no human being has any real power at all.

From a millennial’s perspective, I have two strikes against me. I am a middle-aged woman — a creature who, I can attest from my own years in customer service, is notoriously feisty. I am also a libertarian. Combine those traits and you get someone who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

Of the political philosophies in currency today, only ours makes the connection between personal responsibility and power. We tend to see responsibility, in other words, not as a bad thing, but as at least a potentially good one. With responsibility comes the ability to learn, to change course, and to grow. Without the ability and willingness to take individual responsibility, no human being has any real power at all.

In shielding young people from accountability, parents and authority figures have done them no favors. Blame is treated like a hot potato — or a hand grenade. Feeling bad is not considered a possible prelude to feeling better. It’s avoided as if it were a deadly disease.

Deep down, they know they have no power over anything. Nor is their generation the only one wearing such shackles.

Young people today give every indication that they feel not only blameless, but powerless. For all their strut and bravado about taking power, their very vulnerability attests to the fact that deep down, they know they have no power over anything. Nor is their generation the only one wearing such shackles. Their parents — and often, grandparents — are similarly entrapped.

These trusting souls, of all ages, must believe that it’s nice of the mainstream media, and all those kindhearted politicians and academic experts, to tell them what to think and how to feel. It seems to relieve them of having to think, or to interpret their feelings, for themselves. Apparently they never ask themselves whether those who tell them what to think and how to feel have undertaken this task out of the goodness of their hearts.

They couldn’t possibly have an ulterior motive. It couldn’t be that they want power and control for themselves. For suspecting such a thing, I must definitely be a cranky old lady and a crazy libertarian. But as I inch nearer to the end of my life, I don’t need to worry that I’ll find myself at the end of anyone else’s.

About this Author

Lori Heine is a freelance writer from Goldwater country. Her young adult novel, Good Clowns, is now available on Amazon.

Worker’s Rights Advance, Under the Radar

In the firestorm of news reports surrounding President Trump’s nominees and Russia’s hacking, some great news about workers’ rights has been overlooked. But in January, without any fanfare, Kentucky adopted a right-to-work (RTW) law.

An RTW law simply gives workers in any business where the workers are unionized the right not to support (i.e., join or pay dues to) the union. Without RTW laws, unions can and often do compel workers to join or support them in spite of their desires. While the right to join a union is protected by federal law, the right to refuse to join is not so protected. It is up to the states to pass RTW laws, and counting Kentucky, 27 states have now done so.

The Kentucky House of Representatives first passed the measure by a vote of 58–39. What allowed this to happen was a massive recent historical change: the Republicans took control (by a nearly 2-to-1 margin) of the chamber, which had been controlled by Democrats for nearly a century. Shortly thereafter the bill was passed by the Republican-controlled Senate, in a rare Saturday session, and the Governor — Matt Bevin, also a Republican — immediately signed it into law.

Short-term, this was a fabulous deal for the auto workers, giving them a seemingly crazy amount of job security. But in the long run, it drove the automakers off a fiscal cliff.

The reaction to this by Kentucky union leaders was predictably bitter. Bill Londrigan, head of the Kentucky AFL-CIO, angrily barked, “Right-to-work is simply a clever slogan designed to undermine union resources.” Caitlin Lally, of the Greater Louisville Central Labor Council, lamented, “The future of the fight is in . . . trying to stop the erosion of wages, benefits and safety.”

This is nonsense, of course. There are several compelling arguments about why it is morally repugnant to force workers to support a union, arguments that are winning out in state after state.

First, unions justify forcing workers to support them with the free rider argument: since the unions deliver great contracts to the workers, it is right to make every worker pay dues. However, it is by no means clear that unions negotiate contracts that benefit the workers overall and long-term. For example, the contracts the United Auto Workers were able to force upon US automakers included provisions that seemed great — such as the one requiring the companies to keep all employees on at full pay when any of the companies shuttered a plant (say, because the model made at the plant wasn’t selling). Short-term, this was a fabulous deal for the auto workers, giving them a seemingly crazy amount of job security. But in the long run, it drove the automakers off a fiscal cliff, resulting in the bankruptcy of two of them, and in turn requiring taxpayers to pay massive amounts of subsidies to keep the companies alive.

Second, the right to free association applies to all parties. You and your friends are free to form a club, free from any interference by me. But I have the same right to refuse to join, no matter how much you might think it would benefit me to be a member. Similarly with unions: the right of private-sector workers is sacrosanct, and nobody — least of all I — proposes to take it away. But the right to opt out of the union should therefore be recognized as equally sacrosanct.

Workers who are pro-Second Amendment find with alarm that their dues fund politicians intent on ending gun rights.

To this, union apologists offer the freedom-to-contract argument: workers and management have the right to contract freely, so if a company’s workers can get management to agree to a contract compelling all workers to support the union, the rest of us shouldn’t interfere. But the union apologists are intellectually dishonest here, since they support the federal law that prohibits “yellow dog” contracts — that is, contracts that forbid unionization. If there is freedom of contract, then yellow dog contracts should be allowed, too.

Finally, there is the point made by Thomas Jefferson: “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Unions typically use worker dues for the lavish support of politicians and political organizations that are typically Left-liberal in orientation. So workers who are pro-life find with disgust that their dues go to support extreme pro-choice candidates, and workers who are pro-Second Amendment find with alarm that their dues fund politicians intent on ending gun rights.

More good news for worker freedom may be just around the corner: both Missouri and New Hampshire are considering RTW laws, and both have newly elected Republican governors who have indicated that they support free choice for workers.

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His most recent book, Devious Thoughts, is available through Amazon. All of his academic articles are freely available through www.Academia.edu.

Hidden Messages

Many years ago I was asked to be the scorekeeper at an international synchronized skating competition. I dressed in official black, sat at the judges’ table with my pencil in hand, and proudly wrote down each team’s scores. When the day ended I asked a judge where I should take my clipboard to have my scores recorded. The judge laughed. “Just throw them away. We only record them manually in case there’s a power failure and we lose the official scores.” So. I had just been an insignificant backup scribe. Yet I had enjoyed my experience sitting at the judges’ table, and if the power had failed, my recordkeeping would have saved the day.

I thought about my backup role at that competition while watching Hidden Figures, a terrific film about the little-known women — most of them “colored” — who provided the backup computations in the early days of the space program. They didn’t design the rockets or map the trajectories, but they double-checked the math for the engineers — all of them men — who did those things. It was a respectable job that required respectable dress and respectable manners. They also needed respectable math skills. But they were the proofreaders, not the creators. Even their title objectified them: they were called “computers,” because that’s what they did.

I know how that feels too. My first real job was proofreading for a university press. I had a natural ear for spelling and for grammar rules, and I was fast and accurate at my job. As an added benefit, I spent my days reading the galleys of fascinating books and articles. I felt a definite pride in my grammar skills, as I’m sure the NASA computers felt pride in their math skills. But what I really wanted was to become a writer, not a proofreader. I wanted to be on the other side of those galleys.

Even their title objectified them: they were called “computers,” because that’s what they did.

Three of the computers at NASA also had higher aspirations than backup math. Dorothy Vaughan (played by Octavia Spencer in the film) wanted to be a supervisor. Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. And Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) wanted to be an astrophysicist. Hidden Figures tells the compelling story of how these three women influenced the space program in the early 1960s, while also influencing the civil rights movement regarding women and African-Americans.

You probably didn’t know that any women worked on the space program in the early days, let alone black women. Neither did I. They have been a well-kept secret, these “hidden figures” who did the figuring. The film has predictably outrageous moments as we watch Katherine running to use the “colored restroom” in the building half a mile from the one where she works, or Mary being told that she can’t attend extension classes at the all-white high school, or Dorothy being given the responsibilities of a supervisor without the title or the pay that would go with the official promotion. But what makes this film wonderful is the way these women address these culturally accepted slights with dignity, humor, and indomitable persistence. They are as delightful as they are strong, and they bring something new and fresh to the civil rights story that is usually dominated by the men who were marching, sitting-in, and orating for freedom.

Fans of Big Bang Theory will enjoy seeing Jim Parsons in “Sheldon’s” dream job as a NASA physicist. Kevin Costner is well cast as level-headed, open-minded Al Harrison, the director of the department where Katherine is sent to check the trajectory figures. It was also good to see a grown-up Kirsten Dunst on screen as the supervisor in charge of giving the women from the computing pool their daily assignments. She portrays the kind of woman who thinks she is modern, progressive, and active in advancing the colored women who work under her, until Dorothy responds with a scathing smile, “I’m sure you believe that’s true.”

What makes this film wonderful is the way these women address these culturally accepted slights with dignity, humor, and indomitable persistence.

Hollywood makes few films that a libertarian can cheer, but Hidden Figures is one of them. I suspect the makers of this film didn’t even realize the libertarian ideals hidden within their script about civil rights and racial prejudice. Here are a few gems to watch for:

Lead the Way. Often the argument against change is “This is the way we’ve always done it.” In a film whose backdrop is the race to be first in space, Mary Jackson’s eloquent argument for being allowed to attend the white high school is profound. “Someone has to be first,” she says to the judge who will either maintain the status quo or change the future. “Why not you?”

Recognize Individual Worth. As a child, young Katherine (Lidya Jewett) demonstrates math skills far beyond her years. Her teachers not only recommend a school for children who are gifted in science and mathematics, but they also take up a collection to help her get there. Compare that attitude to the one touted in the new movie Gifted, in which the grandmother (Lindsay Duncan) of a brilliant little girl (McKenna Grace) wants to send her to a special school for gifted children but her uncle and legal guardian (Chris Evans) wants to keep her in the neighborhood school where she will have a “normal” childhood. What kind of world do we live in when we champion mediocrity and vilify those who would nourish genius? Katherine Johnson was blessed to have had her genius recognized and nurtured.

Make Yourself Indispensable. Katherine is sent to Harrison’s department as a simple proofreader, checking the math. She patiently endures the segregationist policies and does her work well. But she goes beyond that, using her skills in analytical geometry to solve trajectory problems the professionals haven’t been able to solve. Eventually her reputation for accuracy becomes so strong that John Glenn (Glen Powell) refuses to launch until Katherine has confirmed the Go-No Go calculations (a story that appears to be founded in fact). Instead of focusing on changing unfair office conditions, she focuses on doing her job well and making herself indispensable.

The law seems to protect the lowest paid workers, but in fact it limits their ability to work extra hard, stand out, and prove themselves worthy of promotion.

Adapt to Changing Technology. When an IBM machine threatens to make the human computers obsolete, Dorothy heads for the library to learn Fortran. She encourages the other women in the computer pool to do the same. She realizes that the one sure way to keep a job is to stay ahead of change so the organization can’t get along without you.

Work Until the Job Is Done. As the pressure to beat the Russians to the moon increases, everyone has to step up. “You’re going to have to work harder and longer than ever before, ” Harrison tells them, “and your paychecks won’t reflect it.” Then he adds, “It starts with me.” They all feel a sense of purpose and accomplishment that transcends the word “job”; they’re part of a mission that will change the world. Compare this to the law enacted on December 1 that mandates workers earning less than $47K be paid time and a half if they work more than 40 hours in a week. It seems to protect the lowest paid workers, but in fact it limits their ability to work extra hard, stand out, and prove themselves worthy of promotion. Significantly, the boss doesn’t give orders and go home — he works long hours right alongside them.

Be Persistent and Patient. Dorothy, Mary, and Katherine never stop lobbying for the promotions and advancements they feel they deserve, but they continue to do the jobs they’ve been hired to do in the meantime. They don’t lead protests or threaten to strike. Instead, they increase their educations, adapt to changing technology, look for places where they can make a difference in the organization, and make themselves critical to the organization’s success. As a result, each of these brilliant women became, in real life, a quiet pioneer — Dorothy Vaughan became the first African-American woman supervisor at NASA, Mary Jackson became the first African-American woman aeronautical engineer, and Katherine G. Johnson was the first African-American woman to become a technical analyst for the space program. Their story is finally and finely told in a film that is entertaining, inspiring, outrage-inducing, and in the end, triumphant.

Jo Ann Skousen is the entertainment editor of Liberty and the founding director of the Anthem Libertarian Film Festival, which screens at FreedomFest in July. For information about tickets and submissions, go to www.anthemfilmfestival.com.

Now the Majority

Amid all the hoopla surrounding the elections, the nation passed a milestone worth noting. We now have right-to-work (RTW) laws in place in the majority of states. This is a cause for quiet celebration.

Earlier this month, West Virginia — long a stronghold of Big Labor (specifically, the United Mine Workers) — voted to become the nation’s 26th RTW state. This was as surprising as Michigan’s decision a couple of years ago.

Workers find their dues used to elect politicians who want to close down the very industries that employ those workers.

It took maneuvering. The law had narrowly passed the Republican-dominated legislature the week before, but Democrat Governor Earl Ray Tomblin vetoed it. However, the state constitution allows the legislature to override a veto with a simple majority. The Republican-dominated legislature did just that, by 18–16 in the Senate and 54–43 in the House.

Undoubtedly the driving force for this change is something I have long noted in these pages. Ever since FDR, there has long been an unholy alliance between Big Labor and the Democratic Party. Labor unions freely used enormous amounts of workers’ money to elect Democrats, who then passed laws favorable to unions, but often opposed to the desires of workers. Over the past 20 years, and especially with the election of Obama, Big Labor has elected Democrats who are environmental extremists. This is the ultimate in irony: workers find their dues used to elect politicians who want to close down the very industries that employ those workers!

That is especially true in West Virginia. Of course, the state has long had major coal-mining operations. But Obama’s campaign against coal has devastated those industries. This has been the major reason that West Virginia has the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation — 6.5%, or about a third higher than the average.

Workers of the country, unite, and throw off the chains with which the vicious environmentalist Democrats have shackled you! Not only will you be free — you may just keep your job!

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His most recent book, Devious Thoughts, is available through Amazon. All of his academic articles are freely available through www.Academia.edu.

Right-to-Work Nation?

The mainstream media has more or less ignored some interesting news out of Wisconsin. It is that the governor, the unflappable Scott Walker, has signed into law a right-to-work bill that covers private sector unions.

This makes Wisconsin the 25th state in the country to adopt right-to-work legislation, that is, legislation that stops any union from forcing workers to support it.

Wisconsin’s action is notable for a variety of reasons. First, it is a traditionally blue state. Second, it is an upper-Midwest industrial state. Third, it has a history of heavy unionization — about one-fifth higher than the national average (8.2%, compared to 6.7%). Back in the mid-1980s, over 20% of Wisconsin private sector workers were in unions.

Also, like Michigan, Wisconsin passed the bill even though its governor was initially reluctant to support it. Walker had originally called it a “distraction,” but after the state senate majority leader pushed the billed through the legislature, Walker quickly signed it into law.

The law did not have bipartisan support. In the state assembly, all 35 Democrats voted against it while all 62 Republicans voted for it. In the senate, 14 Democrats (joined by one turncoat Republican) voted against it, while the remaining 17 Republicans voted for it.

The vitriol reached its peak when a union supporter threatened to gut Walker’s wife “like a deer.”

Proponents of Big Labor hegemony were predictably outraged at Walker’s signing the bill. One union supporter lamented, “It’s going to take 25 to 40 years to correct problems Scott Walker’s done in 4 ½ years.” Phil Neuefeldt, head of Wisconsin’s AFL-CIO, threatened, “We’re not going to forget about it.” And of course our unifying President Barack Obama had to chime in, calling the Wisconsin law “a sustained, coordinated assault in unions, led by powerful interests and their allies in government.”

As if Obama’s whole tenure weren’t a result of the machinations of powerful interests — not least of which is Big Labor.

But then, Walker has made a career of facing down unions. In his first term, he pushed through restrictions on public employee unions’ collective bargaining powers, forced public employees to contribute more to their pension and health care benefits, and gave government employees the right to opt out of the obligation to pay dues to the public employee unions.

These modest reforms appear to have saved local governments in Wisconsin $3 billion in taxpayer dollars and kept property taxes from rising while keeping the number of teachers from being cut. But the teachers’ unions are singing the blues: the National Education Association saw its Wisconsin membership drop from 100,000 to 66,000, the American Federation of Teachers (representing the college teachers) saw a drop of 50%, and the state employees union dropped from 70,000 to 21,000.

For all this, Walker faced near-riotous demonstrations and a recall election, with Big Labor money flowing in from across the nation, to remove him. The public employee unions even tried to remove a Wisconsin state Supreme Court judge who had upheld Walker’s earlier law.

The vitriol reached its peak when a union supporter threatened to gut Walker’s wife “like a deer.” I am always moved by the boundless compassion offered by progressive liberals.

The rhetoric of the Walker-haters aroused by the current law — which, please note, merely gives private-sector workers the freedom given to public sector workers, years ago — has been amazing. But what is to come will almost surely be worse. GOP legislators are now indicating that they will take on Wisconsin’s nearly century-old “prevailing wage law,” which forces governments to pay union-dictated wages on all public works projects.

In the end, what is driving the push for worker freedom is popular opinion, supported by unarguable logic. One recent poll put public support for the right of workers not to support a union at 62%. And the reasons have been the same for decades. First, unions force workers to support candidates and causes they abhor. Second, unions often destroy the businesses that employ the workers. Third, unions violate the human right of free association.

With the action in Wisconsin, half the states in the union now give liberty to workers to belong or refuse to belong to unions. In many of the remaining states, such as California, the stranglehold of Big Labor is too strong to break. Yet there is hope. Should Scott Walker ever become president, with a Congress controlled by Republicans, it is possible that a federal right-to-work law would be enacted.

Should that ever happen, there would be a cry of freedom from American workers that would rock the gates of Heaven itself.

And it could happen.

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His most recent book, Devious Thoughts, is available through Amazon. All of his academic articles are freely available through www.Academia.edu.

The Absurdity of Intellectual “Property”

Kyle Scott’s case for copyright is interesting, and he should be commended for making it so clearly and intelligently. For him, as for many other libertarians, what people write is their own property, like any other kind of property, and they have a natural right to keep it. Government is merely the protector, not the source of their right. All this can be deduced from the natural rights theory most importantly exemplified by John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government.

Unfortunately, so concerned is Mr. Scott with his line of deductive reasoning, so clear, so forcible, so all-sufficient, that he never notices what a strange kind of property he’s talking about. Copyright is property that stops and starts whenever the government starts or stops it. A few decades ago, it lasted for 28 years, with renewal for another 28 years, if you mixed your labor with the thing a second time, by filling out a form asking for renewal. Now it continues for 70 years after your death or, in the case of “work for hire” — work performed, for instance, in the employ of the Disney Corporation, which hired you to mix your labor on its account — for a whopping 90 years after the original publication of whatever you wrote or otherwise created.

Copyright is an invention of government, and it has fluctuated at the arbitrary whim of government.

I have no doubt that many other alterations in the lifetime of this weirdly fluctuating property will occur, as congressmen receive yet more campaign funds from yet more wealthy holders of copyright. As things stand today, however, the heirs of a 20-year-old who writes something, anything, today, and survives to the age of 80, can manifest themselves in the year 2144, demanding that you get their permission to republish this something, anything, that was produced so long ago by so callow a youth. And if the heirs are not around, in the sense of being visible, you will have to find them, or show that you tried. Then, miracle of miracles, in the year 2145, the troublesome property will vanish. The copyright will have expired, a mere 70 years after its author’s expiration, and you will be free to publish it a thousand times over, if you want.

Now really, does this look like property? Do farms and houses vanish 70 years after the deaths of their creators, unless some government action resuscitates them?

Historically, copyright is an invention of government, and it has fluctuated at the arbitrary whim of government. Mr. Scott would doubtless argue that this has nothing to do with the basic issue, which is one of individual right, right eventually recognized and protected, however imperfectly, by government. He might carry his reasoning to the obvious, though absurd, extreme of insisting that anything I write and perhaps toss into the street should be guaranteed to me and my heirs forever — that the heirs of Sophocles and King Solomon, no doubt very numerous by now, should be tracked down and reimbursed for every republication of these authors’ works. Oh no, no need for consultation of Athenian or Israelite statutes of inheritance, which knew nothing of copyright. Principle alone will guide us.

But in truth, copyrighted “property” is no property at all. The assumption that it is property is fraught with as many evils as St. Paul attributed to the love of money.

Everyone has a right to own a house, to sell it, or to pass it to his heirs. But the house doesn’t vanish 70 years after his death, or whenever Congress passes another law. Nor, to get closer to the root of the problem, is the house an abstract title to the legal authority to reproduce a house, the ownership of which title can require expert knowledge to identify after a fairly short time. No, there is the house, at 400 S. Main Street, and there are the people inhabiting the house or paying rent on it to a readily identifiable owner. A house is completely different from the reproduction of a house — or, still more abstractly, the right to reproduce it. Your property right in your house is in no way diminished by my building a house that looks exactly like it. Furthermore, you can’t just build a house and move away and abandon it, and expect other people to run and find you and pay you money for the right to live in it — much less the right to build a house in Dubuque or Delphi that’s exactly like that house. No, other people are eventually going to mix their labor with your house — use it, maintain it, claim it for their own. Even in the most rights-conscious communities, if you keep leaving your grandfather’s gold watch on the sidewalk, someone else is going to pick it up, wind it, clean it, and appropriate it, and no jury will convict him for doing so. Nor should it, all cookie-cutter libertarian theory to the contrary.

The vast majority of copyrights are of no value at all, and honoring them constitutes an enormous tax on productive people.

Now, a copyright is not like a house, and it is not like a gold watch. It is nothing so real as those things. In Mr. Scott’s conception, and that of the United States government, it is an absolute right to keep other people from copying something, for the sole reason that you produced it. You could say the same thing about — pardon my taste for low imagery — your garbage, or the stuff you put in your toilet. Copyright, in this conception, is an absolute guarantee that no one can copy your words, even if you abandoned them, even if you sold somebody the paper they were written on and walked away and didn’t bother to leave your address. Even if you gave the paper away. Even if you left it lying in the gutter. Even if it stayed in the gutter, or in the moldering archives of a vanity press, for seventy years after your death.

Now, if I sold you a house by claiming that Frank Lloyd Wright had built it, and he didn’t build it, but I built it myself, you could sue me for fraud — but the Wright estate could not. I had every right to build and sell the house, even if it looked the same as one of Wright’s houses; I just didn’t have the right to claim that he built it and charge you more accordingly. But if I sold you a laundry list, claiming that Wright had written it, and he did write it, and you reproduced it, only without the permission of his estate, the estate should be able to sue you successfully, according to the argument of Mr. Scott and many other libertarians. What’s the difference? It isn’t a difference of natural right, that’s for sure; it’s a difference of political enactments that have become so naturalized in libertarian thought that rationalizations are found for them.

It never occurs to dogmatists of copyright that valuable works could be protected by invoking laws against fraud. More important, it never occurs to them that the vast majority of copyrights are of no value at all, and that honoring them constitutes an enormous tax on productive people. I know scholars who spend much of their lives trying to trace the copyright owners of works that are almost 100 years old, works that are of no value except to the hapless researchers and a handful of readers. They are paying a pointless tax to a ridiculous law, a law that Mr. Scott would presumably make still more ridiculous by extending it to eternity.

It isn’t a difference of natural right; it’s a difference of political enactments that have become so naturalized in libertarian thought that rationalizations are found for them.

If labor has anything to do with the creation of property — which it doesn’t, contrary to Mr. Scott’s faith in Lockean dogmas, according to which I can’t pick up a kitten in the street without asking who mixed his labor with the land that sustained the kitten’s progenitors, all the way back to Noah — there are a great many more researchers and readers who have a more substantial property right to the stuff they research and read than the authors who once excreted it. If you don’t believe that, try mixing your labor with John Locke’s prose.

Mr. Scott is patently an intelligent person, yet his claims for copyright are patently absurd. This is an observation that could be made in respect to many radical libertarian arguments, particularly those whose results turn out to be, rather ironically, highly conservative. By Scott’s logic, high schools shouldn’t just be teaching Shakespeare; they should be supporting an eternal Shakespeare Trust, providing dividends for his millions of heirs, any one of whom could veto republication of his works, as a matter of right.

This prompts the question: under what circumstances are intelligent persons most likely to make absurd statements, without realizing their absurdity? Answer: When they are in love. And so it is: Mr. Scott — again, like too many other libertarians — is in love with an ideology and cannot see the absurdity to which his supposedly radical position leads him: the absurdity of endorsing, on the ground of individual rights, a massive governmental creation and subsidization of crony “property.”

In Defense of Intellectual Property

Libertarianism can be different things to different people. Trying to define it, or characterize it, will leave some libertarians at odds with one another. What follows will isolate me from most libertarians. It is a defense of intellectual property rights (IPR) based on the thesis that there is no normative distinction between IPR and real property rights (RPR). I will use Butler Shaffer's short polemic for the Mises Institute, "A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property," as my primary foil as it encapsulates many of the arguments against IPR that libertarian thinkers embrace.

Where Shaffer ends I will begin. At the end of his polemic he boils down his rejection of IPR on the ground that a libertarian cannot endorse a right that is created and enforced by the state. The premise that IPR are created by the state is false, while the premise that IPR should be rejected because they are enforced by the state is unpersuasive. This essay will unfold in three parts, with the first demonstrating why Shaffer’s first premise is false, the second section demonstrating why his second premise is unpersuasive, and the third section confronting other objections to IPR.

Section I: Intellectual Property Rights are not created by the state

The only means through which one may defend RP, and not IP, is to say that the manner in which man exerts ownership over RP has nothing to do with his mind. RP and IP are both products of the same process, even though they take different forms. It doesn’t require a great imagination to see this, but because it is an unfamiliar formulation I will elaborate by means of a familiar source: John Locke. A Lockean justification of private property provides a sound defense of IPR by building through a property of conscience.

Unless we assume that man’s arms and legs move without cognition, man’s labor is a product of his mind.

In chapter 5 of his Second Treatise on Government Locke gives his seminal account of property rights. It runs thus: man alone is in possession of himself, and through his drive and ingenuity he extends his dominion beyond himself. Man is in possession of himself because no other individual gave him his will, conscience, or abilities; thus, no one else can exert dominion over him except that to which he consents.

Man takes possession of property when it lies in common and he mixes his labor with it. Simply put, if there is unowned property available, and someone takes it out of its natural state by mixing his labor with it, that property becomes his so long as there is enough left over for others to sustain themselves, for that man has no right to deprive others of providing for themselves. An acorn becomes mine if it is lying on the ground or staying in the tree, and I take it out of its natural state by mixing my labor with it — plucking it from the tree or picking it up from the ground. The mixing of labor makes it mine because that acorn is no longer what it had been. My labor made it something that it had not previously been, by virtue of my efforts. This means that nobody else can stake a claim to it without depriving me of the fruits (or nuts, in this case) of my labor.

The Lockean argument gets a bit more complicated, but in terms of how common property becomes private, this is it. That is why Locke and his intellectual heirs consider private property paramount for the preservation of liberty, for there is no real distinction between man and his property, since property is nothing more than the extension and physical manifestation of a man's liberty.

As it relates to IP, a Lockean position is easy to extract. Unless we assume that man’s arms and legs move without cognition, man’s labor is a product of his mind. Without cognition I would not cut down trees and build a shelter, nor would I engage in any productive activity that would lead to property ownership. Whether it’s writing a book or building a widget, property originates from man’s will and ability to produce.

If the process by which IP is protected is conducted poorly, that is simply the government doing a necessary job poorly and not evidence that the job is unnecessary.

James Madison has a more expansive, and sometimes confusing, articulation of property rights, but he understands them as Locke does. Madison uses property to describe what man possesses within himself (what Locke would call will or labor), and those external objects that become man's possessions through the mixing of himself with them (land, hogs, etc.). This formulation is articulated by Madison in a 1792 essay entitled "Property." Madison writes:

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions. Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause. Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

We may conclude that protecting property, broadly understood, is the sole object of government for both Madison and Locke.

Somebody stealing my IP is the same as someone stealing my RP, particularly if IP is what I use to make a living. If the market for my book is 10,000 people, then someone who resells my book, or makes 10,000 copies it and sells them without my permission, has shrunk the market for me, the originator and creator of the book. This is no different from someone breaking into my shop and stealing 10,000 widgets and selling them on the black market when the market for the widget is 10,000 people. In either instance my ability to make a living through my labor has been denied by someone who illegitimately used the product of my labor without my consent. In simple terms: my right to life, liberty, and property has been denied. Nothing gives someone else the right to capitalize on my labor without my consent, for without my labor that product would not be in existence. These considerations give me sole ownership of the property if we follow the Lockean formulation of property rights.

Section II: Rights and the State

It is not a defect of IP that it needs the government to enforce it; it is the fault of libertarians if they cannot accommodate a necessary and just idea, such as IP, without government enforcement. If libertarians reject IP on the ground that it needs government to enforce it, then we have not evaluated IP on its merits but merely through a heuristic defined by ideology rather than logic.

If the process by which IP is protected is conducted poorly, that is simply the government doing a necessary job poorly and not evidence that the job is unnecessary. The focus should be on how to correct what’s wrong, not how to eradicate protections for property. Government is legitimate when it protects life, liberty, and property, and illegitimate when it does not. That does not mean that life, liberty, and property are illegitimate ends when the government does a poor job protecting them. To reject the ends because the means are faulty is a logical error.

Furthermore, libertarians who embrace RP cannot reject IP on enforcement grounds, for RP also requires government enforcement. Perhaps in idealized settings, or at least in smaller, more communal settings than the current nation-state model, RP would not require the government for protection. But we don’t live in those scenarios and must therefore recognize the reality of the situation. We can certainly debate the degree to which the government protects RP well, the means through which it does so, and the externalities associated with government protection of RP, but I don’t think anyone would say that if the police in every city were shuttered up tomorrow, crime would be reduced significantly the following day. In today’s reality, RP requires government protection just as IP does. Thus, unless one is willing to reject RP on these grounds one cannot also reject IP for the same reason.

Section III: Remaining Objections and Rebuttals

Shaffer objects to those who say that IPR promote creativity by protecting the products of one’s creative endeavors. It is true that IPR do not make me more creative, but IPR protection may provide incentives for creative activities rather than other activities that would be more profitable. If I am a musician who is unable to profit from my music because others can steal my ideas, I will have to find another job. This doesn’t prevent me from being creative, but it does reduce my incentive to do so and it impedes my ability to dedicate the necessary time to creative endeavor.

Shaffer uses the Roman aqueducts and the Egyptian pyramids as examples of human achievements in ingenuity and creativity that occurred without IPR. What Shaffer fails to acknowledge is that these were state-sponsored projects that would not have been realized without financing and organization from a large state. Similarly, while Michelangelo did not require IPR to produce his art he did require a wealthy patronage to support him and his products financially. IPR is one reason we no longer have to rely upon a patronage system in the arts and literature.

We must not deny producers security in their life, liberty, and property for fear that the authority we must rely upon to do so may turn against it.

Shaffer endorses the claim by Paul Feyerabend that “science is an essentially anarchistic enterprise” to demonstrate that an open exchange of ideas is beneficial for scientific and artistic achievement. But the passage from Feyerabend goes on to stipulate that “theoretically anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.” Shaffer conveniently ignores the operative term “theoretically” and thus fails to explore the reality of our world and defaults to the theoretical without acknowledging having done so. Shaffer, and all those who endorse stripping producers of their ownership rights, should recognize that producers have bills to pay and those who steal their products deprive them of their ability to provide for themselves through the outcomes of their labor. Moreover, thieves do exist, and having a means to guard against them is necessary albeit unfortunate.

Conclusion

In practical and theoretical terms there is no meaningful distinction between real property and intellectual property. If libertarians accept government protections for real property then they must too accept them for intellectual property if consistency is to be maintained.

I am sympathetic to the concern that when we ask the government to protect us it enfeebles us potentially and opens the door for the government to inch into other areas of our lives. But, the potential does not have to be realized if we do not permit it. It is possible to restrain and confine the government to those means and ends that we think most appropriate. Thus, we must not deny producers security in their life, liberty, and property for fear that the authority we must rely upon to do so may turn against it. We must instead opt for just government rather than reject it outright until such a time comes that we live in a world of entirely honest men and women.

With the permission of the author, a reply to this essay has been invited from Wayland Hunter; it is available here.

About this Author

Kyle Scott, Ph.D., teaches political science at the University of Houston and is an elected member of the Board of Trustees for the Lone Star College System. Kyle's most recent book is Federalist Papers: A Reader's Guide. His commentary on current events has appeared in Forbes, Reuters.com, the Christian Science Monitor, Foxnews.com, the Huffington Post, and dozens of local outlets. He can be contacted at kyle.a.scott@hotmail.com.

Universities Are Not Walmart

Just recently, the e-zine Salon.com ran a piece bearing the provocative title, “The Walmart-ization of higher education: How young professors are getting screwed.” It wins my prize for the most bizarre think-piece of the year.

The author, Keith Hoeller, considers the move in higher education to replace tenure-track professors with lowly adjuncts. To him, this is apparently as shocking as it is surprising.

He begins by noting that various surveys of workers show that tenured professors are a pretty happy bunch. They average over $90,000 a year in total compensation, for only nine months work, and they report low levels of job stress, high levels of job satisfaction, and so on. This is hardly a surprise. Getting tenure means never having to hear “you’re fired.” Tenured professors are virtually immune from termination, no matter how poor their job performance.

The first strange thing about Hoeller’s article is that it isn’t reporting anything new. The shift from highly-paid tenured professors to lowly-paid adjuncts has been going on for decades. The article’s deeper flaw its author’s use of Walmart as a slur.

Yes, Walmart uses a lot of part-time labor, as do most other retail and service industries. (The frequency of part-time work is increasing rapidly as the full implementation of that crazy-quilt law called ObamaCare grows nigh). But the resemblance ends there. Walmart, so despised by bien pensant literati, has succeeded in lowering its prices dramatically, on a vast array of consumer goods, and has done so since its inception. Walmart saves the average American family — all American families, including those of elitists who refuse to shop there — something like $2,300 per year. Its costcutting measures, including of course labor-saving measures — which go way beyond using part-time labor — have benefitted all consumers with lower prices and better goods, and Walmart investors with a good return on their money.

Walmart, Target, Costco and so on continue to deliver more for less, while the higher education system business only continues to deliver less for more.

In stark contrast, colleges have systematically screwed their consumers and investors. Consider first the consumers, i.e. students. During the past few decades, they have seen their tuition rise much faster than inflation — while the service rendered has steadily deteriorated. The deterioration takes the form of watered-down courses, degrees in vacuous subjects, and rampant grade inflation. Over the past decade in particular, students have had to run up huge amounts of loan debt getting degrees that have proven worthless in terms of career placement.

The investors in these colleges, the taxpayers (for public schools) and the donors (for private ones), who have seen graduation rates dwindle and the employability of recent college grads — only 56% of whom are in jobs appropriate to their training — plummet, are also being swindled.

The Hoeller piece doesn’t address the damning context of the increased use of academic part-timers: the fact that such savings in labor costs have not even slowed the explosion of costs to the students, and the fact that the services rendered have dropped in quality. The proximate cause is, of course, administrative bloat.

Bloat is the focus of a recent article by Jon Marcus of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. Marcus reviews a report from the Delta Cost Project (also reviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education) on the rapid growth in college administrative staff. Marcus reports that the growth in the number of college administrators has greatly exceeded the growth in both the number of students and the number of faculty. Over the past 25 years, colleges and universities have increased the number of their administrative staff by 517,636. During that time, the ratio of nonacademic employees to faculty has doubled. We now see two non-academics for every tenure-track or tenured professor at public universities, and a ratio of two and a half to one at private colleges.

Growth in this area is especially strong at the central offices of public college and university systems. For example, the headquarters of the California State University system has a separate budget that exceeds the budget of three of its campuses!

Marcus cites economist Robert Martin making the point that so eluded Hoeller: “While the rest of the economy was shrinking overhead, higher education was investing heavily in more overhead.” Walmart, Target, Costco and so on continue to deliver more for less, while the higher education system business only continues to deliver less for more.

Marcus notes that in constant dollars, tuition and fees have nearly doubled at private four-colleges, and nearly tripled at public four-year colleges, over the last quarter-century. And during this period, the ratio of part-time to full-time faculty has gone from about one-third to about one-half.

Naturally, administrators have a reply: they claim they are delivering more value to the consumers (students) and principals (taxpayers and donors) by creating and expanding offices for security, counseling, technology services, “sustainability,” disabled student services, and especially “diversity.” But skeptics rightly reply that these services don’t seem to have resulted in objectively measurable favorable outcomes. For example, over the past decade, Marcus notes, the percentage of students pursuing bachelor’s degrees — which can be completed in four years — and actually getting their degrees within six years has risen only slightly (from 55% in 2002 to 58% in 2012).

In constant dollars, tuition and fees have nearly doubled at private four-colleges, and nearly tripled at public four-year colleges, over the last quarter-century.

And several economists cited in Marcus’ piece made the obvious point that universities, to the extent they even need many of these services, could easily outsource them. As Robert Martin put it, “You can hire outside firms, on a contract basis, with competitive bidding. All these activities are a distraction from what the institution is supposed to be doing.”

What is causing the exploitation of adjuncts and the explosion in student fees is at base the same thing: a severe case of the principal-agent problem.

The managerial agents at American universities — the administrators — have achieved virtually total power over the institutions they manage, so much so that they view themselves as the true principals (owners). Of course, they’re not — the principals are the taxpayers, the donors, and the tuition-payers. But the administrators seldom see it that way.

Until this problem is solved, you can expect to see administrative bloat continue apace, enabled by the burgeoning ranks of the adjuncts — and by higher tuition, which is in turn fueled by the federal student loan program, a government program run amuck.

In fine, the American university system is as dissimilar to Walmart as you can get. Walmart has not been shafting its customers through management bloat, higher prices, poorer service, and lousier products, all fueled by massive federal subsidies. The American university system has.

Growth in this area is especially strong at the central offices of public college and university systems. For example, the headquarters of the California State University system has a separate budget that exceeds the budget of three of its campuses!

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His most recent book, Devious Thoughts, is available through Amazon. All of his academic articles are freely available through www.Academia.edu.

An Unforeseen Development?

On NPR this morning, I heard that 525,000 people had left the American labor force in December. I couldn’t find the number on the NPR website, so I looked on the Labor Department’s. My “find” function came up empty there as well. It’s probably there, but I think you have to add and subtract a little from the relevant columns of figures to come up with it. Having wasted precious minutes, I grew impatient. I baited my Google hook with the raw number (525k) and cast it into the data sea. The number was reported on many suspect blogs, tagged with red doughnuts warning me away. Then: Voilà. An article from Economics Analytics Research, “Unemployment Rate Plunges to 6.7% in Dec. As Labor Force Shrinks; Payrolls Up Disappointing 74K”:

The drop in the unemployment rate came as a result not of new jobs, but a sharp increase in the number of persons not in the labor force — 525,000 — to 91,808,000, an increase of 2,969,000 in the last year. In 2012, the number of persons not in the labor force increased 2,199,000.

Why are people dropping out of the labor force? Some retire. Some grow weary of a fruitless job search and move in with their parents. Others migrate to the underground economy. But why the “sharp” increase at the end of 2013?

Let’s face it, there are people who will choose to glide into Social Security and Medicare on the wings of Obamacare.

At least part of the reason may be this: before January 1, 2014, when you left the labor force early, not only did you lose any possibility of unemployment benefits but you were also probably tossed into the healthcare jungle of uninsurable pre-existing conditions, crowded emergency rooms, and lousy medical treatment.

Let us say that you are a 60ish empty nester who has been downsized. You have been looking for work for a year. Your unemployment benefits have run out and all your job leads have led nowhere. While you have a modest nest egg, Social Security won’t kick in for a few years and Medicare a few years after that. Your company-sponsored health insurance has run out and you are on the verge of applying for jobs for which you are ridiculously overqualified just to get the insurance.

But not so fast. Beginning on January 1, 2014, if you don’t have a job or more than a modest income, you are eligible for Medicaid — healthcare provided at no cost to you as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Please note: non-income assets don’t count against eligibility, and, under the new law, the allowable income ceiling has been raised (eligibility requirements have been relaxed) to allow millions more to enjoy this benefit, including the boomer described above.

Let’s face it, there are people who will choose to glide into Social Security and Medicare on the wings of Obamacare. They will choose not to take a big step down the career ladder in order to secure a benefit that is available for the asking. There is a facet of human nature that shrugs, “Why not?”

It has to be asked: was this incentive to hang it up early an intended part of the new law, or was this “sharp” shrinking of the labor force an unforeseen development?

In either case: heck of a job, guys.

About this Author

S.H. Chambers is a cartoonist whose books Mock Hypocrisies, Zeitgeist Kebab, and Entertaining Blasphemies are available at shchambers.com. Over the last twenty years, thousands of his cartoons have appeared in Liberty, National Review, Mouth, and Bostonia, among others.

Speaking Truth to Stupidity

An amusing incident occurred recently in France, which not long back elected a Socialist government — an incident so amusing it warrants noting.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, an American tire company — Titan International — was looking at possibly taking over Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s unprofitable French factory in Amiens. Maurice Taylor, Titan’s CEO, visited the factory late last year to assess the economic viability of the proposed acquisition.

Taylor looked the place over and wrote an interesting letter to the French Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, explaining why he was not going to pursue the deal — a letter that caused a hysterical reaction in a government much given to hysteria.

In his inspection of the plant, Taylor found that the communist-controlled union was totally obstructive to all the changes needed to make it profitable, including such mundane steps as requiring workers to work put in longer hours and permitting target layoffs of unneeded staff. He found that the highly-paid union workers were working only three hours a day on average. Worse, the workers were demanding that Titan guarantee all their jobs for a minimum of seven years.

In his letter to Montebourg, who had contacted Taylor in January to see why Titan wasn’t pursuing the failing factory, Taylor replied, “Sir, your letter states that you want Titan to start a discussion. How stupid do you think we are?” He went on to say, “Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tires. What does the crazy union have?”

This brought on Montebourg’s hysterical reaction. He told Taylor, “Your comments, which are as extremist as they are insulting, display a perfect ignorance of our country, France.” The furious Frenchie added the dig, “Can I remind you that Titan . . . is 20 times smaller than Michelin . . . and 35 times less profitable? That shows how much Titan could have learned and gained from establishing itself in France.”

However, the moronic Montebourg did not answer the obvious question of why, if the French tire maker Michelin is so marvelously profitable and skillful, it didn’t pick up the plant itself.

The exaggerated response showed that the Socialist government is once again on the defensive. It is making only the feeblest attempts at reforming France’s notoriously rigid and archaic workplace rules, rules that make laying off or cutting back the hours of workers extremely difficult, and so international business is continuing to avoid opening production facilities there.

I wish that I could revere CEO Taylor as an entrepreneurial hero speaking truth to politicians as stupid as they are powerful. But in his letter, Taylor accused the American government of being little better than the French because it hasn’t taken steps to protect America’s tire makers from Chinese competition.

It doesn’t seem to occur to Taylor that protectionist laws help domestic unions get similarly rigid and inefficient work rules for American workers.

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His most recent book, Devious Thoughts, is available through Amazon. All of his academic articles are freely available through www.Academia.edu.